


Girls in Red Dresses

by Maltheniel



Series: The Once and Future King [10]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: (Gwaine has so many good tags!), Awesome Gwaine (Merlin), Gen, Gwaine Being Gwaine (Merlin), Gwaine Lives (Merlin), POV Gwaine (Merlin), Protective Gwaine (Merlin), absolutely no details or descriptions of sex, or comes back to life at least, tw: themes of prostitution and underage prostitution
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-13
Updated: 2020-07-13
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:47:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25237951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maltheniel/pseuds/Maltheniel
Summary: When Gwaine left his home to go adventuring, he saw far more than he wanted to see of some things.Things such as girls in red dresses, leaning unwilling against men with fear in their seductive glances.Gwaine has never claimed to be a perfect man, but there are some things he cannot see without stopping them. He decided long ago that he would do what he could to make the dark and cruel world a little less dark and cruel.
Relationships: Gwaine & Gwaine's Sister (Merlin), Gwaine & Merlin (Merlin)
Series: The Once and Future King [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1774627
Comments: 14
Kudos: 53





	Girls in Red Dresses

Gwaine's father died when he in the womb and Nelda was five years old, died in a battle for Carleon and left his wife and the two children she had struggled to conceive alone. His mother pleaded with the king for something to live on, and he ordered her turned out of the castle and the door barred behind her.

At age five when he learned the story, Gwaine started realizing how cruel the world could be.

His mother knew how to weave, and it was only her hands, moving constantly, that stood between them and starvation. Some days the thread they hung by was so thin it seemed like it would snap, but somehow they hung on.

When Nelda was in her teens, Gwaine got his first exposure to those even less fortunate than his family was. Nelda was a rebellious girl, fleeing the house at every opportunity and spending time in the less reputable sections of the town. Gwaine heard the whispers often that his sister was seen with the girls in red.

"Don't wear the red," Gwaine heard his mother pleading with Nelda, one night when he was sneaking down from the loft for something to drink. He froze and listened.

"Why not?" Nelda demanded stonily. "It's not as if I'm any better than them."

"I'm not saying you are," his mother answered, sounding on the verge of tears, "but I have fought and labored and starved every day since my Godwin died to keep from dressing in the red and to keep you from having to do it. Please, Nelda. It's not a matter of worth."

Nelda let out one sob; then from his spot on the stairs Gwaine could see his sister's shadow tumble into the shadow of their mother's embrace.

"It's not fair," Nelda sobbed. "It's not fair. None of them have mothers like you."

Gwaine crept back up to his attic, forgetting about his drink.

When Nelda was seventeen and Gwaine was twelve, carelessly hunting adventure with a wooden sword in hand whenever he got a spare minute, Nelda brought a girl in red home.

The girl was gasping, doubled over with her hands on her swollen stomach. Gwaine dropped his sword with a crash; Nelda faced her mother with fiery eyes.

"Please, Mother," she said. "She has nowhere else to have the baby."

Mother blinked twice; then she nodded and went to the bag of clean scraps of cloth.

"Of course," she said calmly. "Fill the kettle and boil some water, won't you, Gwaine? Here, lie down, daughter; you're safe here."

Gwaine got his crash course in where babies came from that evening.

When it was all over, the girl sat slumped against their wall, face wet with sweat and tears, eyes bright as she cradled her newborn son in her arms.

"What am I to do with you?" she whispered, crooning, to the baby, rocking him a little. "Mama can't provide for you at all."

"You could stay here," Mother said steadily.

The girl stared up at her with numb shock.

"I could teach you to weave," Mother offered, "and help you raise your son. At any rate, you're staying here tonight."

The girl stayed and learned to weave. Food and supplies were tighter than ever for a while, but Gwaine and Nelda were used to making do. After that, their doors were always open.

By the time Gwaine was seventeen, Nelda had married a wandering circusmaster with a flair for the dramatic and compassion for the fallen that mirrored hers and left on her own merry way. Their mother was dead, gone younger than she should be but with a peaceful smile on her lips and contentment in her last words. And the weaving she had begun was carried on by a whole shopful of girls who had used to wear red dresses.

There was no use for Gwaine here. He set off to see the world.

Gwaine realized far faster than he wanted to that there were too many girls in red dresses. Too many girls hanging around the taverns, leaning up against men with emptiness in their eyes, selling everything they had to live.

Girls like these had been part of Gwaine's life for years, more his mother's and sister's to help than his, but the first time a girl in a red dress with weary eyes and a ghost of a smile leaned on his shoulder, his anger flared to life. She couldn't be more than fifteen.

Gwaine took her with him, but not for the reasons anyone expected. He took her all the way back to the weaver's shop he thought he had left. He gave her to the girls who had stood where she stood, and he watched life come back to her eyes and her smile turn real as she saw a way out.

After that, Gwaine couldn't stop looking for the girls in red and looking to give them a way out. He worked where he could to pay his way – and so that he could pay for the girls he rescued to be set up in new lives, where they would have a way forward. He picked up tips on sword fighting from anyone willing to teach him, partly because he had been fascinated with swords since he was about seven and partly because he got into far too many altercations where swordplay was useful to know.

Most men who employed girls in red dresses took exception to Gwaine trying to rescue their girls. Gwaine took exception to their taking exception.

He couldn't take most of the girls back to the weaver's shop in Caerleon's kingdom, especially as his restlessness drove him further and further, led him to more and more taverns with less savory businesses going on underneath. He learned to scout around a bit in the towns, pick up the rhythms, try to find places that would be willing to take in his girls. He found that if he could ever find any girls who used to wear the red, they were often very ready to help him.

There were towns, in fact, where all that was needed was his sword and the girls already knew how they wanted to rescue themselves.

Gwaine fled every town and area before he could gain too much of a reputation. Partly he didn't want the men he crossed calling bounty hunters down on his head, partly he hated commitment, partly he was a little afraid of being accused of magic for spiriting people away. There was a reason he avoided Camelot.

He hardened over the years and tossed that fear away as childish. He tossed all fear away, as a matter of fact, because in a world where men thought they could rule you by fear, the best resistance was to be utterly fearless. He joked and jibed and swung his sword and saved the girls he could, and he laughed in the face of danger.

It wasn't that he was perfect by any stretch of the imagination; Gwaine loved drama and causing a scene whenever he could, whether it was for a good cause or not. He had been a wild child and he was a reckless man, and he knew he was far too much for anyone to put up with for long – there was a reason he never stayed around long enough for people to get tired of him. There was no one who cared about him left in the world (except Nelda, and they had lost contact years ago), and thus no one to stop him when he charged full speed ahead where angels would fear to tread. He liked kissing girls, just not as much as everyone seemed to think, although he flirted lightly and often. And he liked the taste of rum and ale and mead, and the way they let him forget how dark and cruel the world could be for a while.

It was just that he had decided long ago that he would do what he could to make it a little less dark and cruel.

Gwaine liked the tavern in the small settlement he had come across. Mary ran a clean place, and there was no hint of underhanded trickery or girls in red dresses. Gwaine settled down to enjoy a good mug of mead in peace and quiet for once. What? It wasn't that he didn't appreciate those things; he just couldn't stand them in large doses.

Of course, since the world was the way it was, the moment he settled down to enjoy peace and quiet, a group of thugs decided to show up, a bright-haired man who thought he had authority and his friend with a brilliant grin decided to take them on, and Gwaine decided he'd had enough of peace and quiet and threw himself back in the thick of things.

And that was how he wound up in Camelot, realizing that he had saved a prince, which was a disconcerting thought. Gwaine had decided long ago that he didn't mind in the least if he died saving someone no one else would consider dying for. He didn't want to be one of the ones who threw their lives away for useless royalty.

By the time his stay at Camelot came to an end, Gwaine had broadened his mind enough to make an exception for Arthur. He could change his mind enough to let one lone nobleman in, since he was actually noble. It wasn't a renunciation of Gwaine's lifelong principles or anything. At least Uther had firmly confirmed his suspicions that most kings were definitely not worth dying for.

Merlin, on the other hand – Merlin was the first man Gwaine thought of as a friend in many, many years. Gwaine had a healthy distaste for most men; they all had agendas hidden behind their eyes, and few cared who was hurt in the process. But Merlin – he had an agenda too, Gwaine was certain of it, but it wasn't malicious. Gwaine prided himself on reading character, and he was certain of that. As the days went on, he guessed it was as simple as keeping his prince alive – which was disappointingly common, but not incomprehensible.

Gwaine was to realize that it was both as simple and far more complicated than that.

But Merlin was clearly as lonely in some ways as Gwaine was; it was as painful for him to speak of his father as it was for Gwaine to speak of his, and there was comfort in sharing the memories. And Merlin was the first man in years to seriously ask Gwaine to stay, as if he'd prefer that option.

Merlin was the first person since childhood that Gwaine let in as a friend. There would eventually be others, but Merlin had won a place all of his own, and Gwaine would never forget that.

"I like that you tried, and that you know when to stop," Gwen told him.

Of course he knew how to stop. Gwaine had seen firsthand the damage done when a man didn't and vowed not to be that sort of man.

But she was more sincere in talking to him than many people were, and by the time Gwaine left Camelot, she felt the slightest bit like a friend too.

Sometimes things went badly south, as they did when he found a whole wagonload of girls set to be carried off to the slaver Jarl Gwaine had been hearing about for a while. He wasn't quite quiet enough in getting them loose, and Jarl's men came storming out of the pub where they had been having supper.

Gwaine shoved the bag with all the gold he had on him at the nearest girl – the tallest one who had hung back to talk to him.

"Go," he hissed. "Find a new life – all of you. I'll hold them off."

It was much less than he usually did for them, but with his sword coming into immediate demand, it was all he could do.

"Come for me, have you?" he called merrily to the advancing guards. "I'm afraid I'm not as pretty as what you might have been looking for!"

He got himself caught and carted off as a slave, but ah well. That was what life and adventures were made of. At least the last time he glanced over his shoulder all the girls had vanished into the shadows.

Being gotten out of Jarl's castle by the Prince of Camelot and Merlin, who was still the only man Gwaine bothered calling a friend – that was something he hadn't seen coming. Definitely wasn't complaining, though.

"Paperwork, really?" Gwaine complained. "I thought all there was to becoming a knight was those little sword-taps."

"You thought wrong, then," Arthur said with a smirk. "I'll leave you to it."

"Abandoning us in our hour of need?" Gwaine called after him. "What kind of prince is that?"

He didn't let on that half his complaining was because he had realized that Percival could neither read nor write, and Elyan was obviously not used to doing it often. Only he and Lancelot were filling out the forms with ease, and he wanted to make the help they were offering less obvious or embarrassing.

Then he saw one line in the document, and froze.

"Name of wife or dependents, for salary to be forwarded to in case of death."

For a moment Gwaine couldn't move and was fighting not to let tears come to his eyes.

Then he dashed a quick "not applicable" onto that line and moved on. But that was the moment that he truly made peace with being a knight.

There were very few girls who wore the red around Camelot, which Gwaine appreciated. But there was one day when he was out on patrol, riding through the woods by himself, and came across a young woman by the side of a road near one of the nearby settlements. She was apparently nursing a young baby, a dirty shawl hiding her shoulders and chest from sight, and her dress was flaming red.

Gwaine reined in his horse; he wouldn't have left any young woman alone in the woods, but he especially wanted to talk to this girl. "Good afternoon!" he called out cheerfully. "Sir Gwaine of Camelot here; I mean you no harm. Where do you go this fine afternoon?"

"Isn't it obvious?" the girl asked tiredly. She lowered her baby – thin, wrapped in a dirty blanket – to lie in her lap, and adjusted her shawl around her shoulders. "Unless you'd rather take your pleasure here," she added as he dismounted. "I do charge, you know."

Gwaine stayed by his horse. "When I said I meant you no harm, I meant every word," he said, steel in his voice. Not the first time his intentions had been mistaken, but that was not a direction he was ever going to go. "I'm not going to touch you, my lady. I wish to offer assistance."

"Assistance." The girl laughed, the sound bitter, and her baby squalled softly. "What assistance do you want to offer me?"

"To give you another way to earn a living," Gwaine told her. "If you're going to Camelot, I know the tavern could use another barmaid. Or there's apprenticeships where you could earn a skill for a living."

The girl's eyes widened. "So you're that Gwaine," she said. "Never thought you'd be a knight."

Gwaine could never decide if his reputation in the underworld was more helpful or annoying. "Never thought I'd be a knight either, mi'lady," he said cheerfully. "Destiny has a way of taking us to places we never thought we'd be, it seems. Now where and whither shall I escort you, my lady?"

"Morwenna," the girl said. She adjusted her shawl deftly to bind her baby on her back and picked up a small bundle. "I'm no lady."

"Ah, but to me you are," Gwaine told her cheerfully.

Morwenna snorted, shaking back her tangled hair and standing up. Gwaine knew better than to offer her a hand. "To Camelot, then, I suppose," she said.

Gwaine chattered all the way to Camelot, walking beside her and leading his horse. It seemed to help, sometimes, if he kept up a chatter that he clearly didn't expect any answers to, and since Gwaine was allergic to silence unless absolutely needed, it worked out well. Morwenna, though, filled his chatter with sarcastic commentary whenever she had an opportunity, and they eventually settled into more natural conversation. By the time they got to Camelot, Gwaine had learned that her baby daughter's name was Ravenel, that she had been on her own since her mother died some years ago, and that the town leaders had finally declared she was besmirching the village as she tried to stay alive and kicked her out. Gwaine had somehow told her a bit about Nelda, about growing up with his mother's weaving the only thing between them and starvation.

He really had to stop giving out key pieces of his past to random strangers, no matter how trustworthy they seemed.

"So where to now?" Gwaine asked as they came near Camelot. "The tavern?"

Morwenna winced just a bit. "Please," she said softly, "if I have options, I'd rather not."

"Of course you have options," Gwaine told her. "Do you have any skill you'd like to develop? Helps just a bit with deciding on apprenticeships."

Morwenna bit her lip and glanced at the ground.

"Weaving?" she asked softly, looking at him sideways.

Something knotted and relaxed all at once, deep in Gwaine, but all he said was, "Of course. The weaving mistress is a good lady." And he'd scouted her out before and knew she'd be okay with an apprentice.

"And now through the front gate?" Morwenna asked a bit bitterly, glancing down at her bright, tattered dress.

"You wound me, my lady," Gwaine said dramatically as he tethered his horse to a tree to leave behind for now. "You don't think a knight of Camelot has better ways of getting into the city?"

For the first time that day, perhaps, her smile was genuine.

By the time Gwaine slipped back into the castle's courtyard, he was extremely late for coming in from patrol, which was probably really bad after the recent scare with undead armies and all of that. Gwaine supposed that was why Sir Leon reamed him out about it, unless it was just that Camelot was this picky all of the time. But he could catch the hint of actual caring in the scolding, which was unique in his experience. Besides, Leon had signed up to fight undead soldiers with the rest of them, so he couldn't hate him for being stuffy or rule-bound too much.

"Don't worry about me," he said when Leon ran out of steam, clapping him on the shoulder. "I always bounce back. Even when you don't want me to."

Leon didn't quite look like he knew what to do with that, so Gwaine went off to stable his horse.

Morwenna would sleep safely tonight for the first night in far too long, her baby protected, with a roof over her head and a kind woman the only other soul in the house. To be the connection to set that up, Gwaine would take a thousand well-meaning scoldings.

Normally, after Gwaine helped a girl find herself a chance at a new life, he never saw her again; his wandering vagabond ways saw to that. So it was a bit of a surprise, even though it shouldn't have been, when he was down in the marketplace one day and a pretty voice with a bit of bite to it called out, "Sir Gwaine!"

He turned to find Morwenna, dressed in modest blue, waving at him from the stall selling woven cloth. She was smiling, even if there was an edge to it.

Gwaine tossed a coin to a flower-seller and plucked a tiny blue flower that matched her dress. "Good day, my lady," he said, walking up to Morwenna. "How fare ye?"

"I fare well, Sir Knight," she told him, and there was sincerity under the lighthearted tone. "Though I doubt I can interest you in buying cloth today?"

"I'm afraid all my shirts at the moment are insultingly intact," Gwaine answered, grinning. "I merely come this way to acknowledge my lady." And he held out the blue flower to her.

She laughed, not reading anything into it, exactly the way he wanted, and stuck it in the woven roof of the stand. "There," she said. "Now we're as fancy as the castle down here, all decorated up."

Gwaine smiled and leaned a careless hip against her stall. "How's Ravenel doing?" he asked.

Morwenna's eyes softened. "She's doing well," she said quietly. "She's with Mistress Kendra today while I man the stall." She folded a piece of cloth suddenly, not looking at Gwaine. "Thank you so much for taking me to her," she said quietly. "I can't say how much it means."

"Of course," Gwaine said, light but as sincere as he knew how to be. "You don't have to thank me for decency."

Morwenna smiled at him, tears catching in the corner of her eyes, and Gwaine thought she was quite the prettiest girl he'd seen in a long time.

He was used to thinking girls pretty and not acting on it, though. He knew Morwenna wouldn't be ready for any romantic thoughts for a long time, if ever, and that was fine by him.

He wound up talking to Morwenna more than he expected over the years, though, because she was never shy of striking up a conversation with him whenever they ran into each other. He gave her flowers every time he saw her, cheap wildflowers, and it became a running joke between them that she could decorate the whole stall with all the flowers he'd given her over time. But he got to watch her eyes slowly lose their haunted look, her voice the sharp edge meant to ward off others before they could get close and hurt her. He got to see her with her baby wrapped warm in her arms, cooing soft mother-things to her daughter. And he wondered if Nelda had children, if he had nieces and nephews he'd never gotten in contact with, who would have been loved like this little girl.

One time Morwenna told him, quietly and in confidence, that she and Kendra were doing everything they could to help out girls at risk in Camelot, by the castle and in the surrounding towns. There was no underground conspiracy to enslave girls here, like Gwaine had taken on with nothing other than his sword elsewhere, but there were unprotected girls everywhere. Maybe especially in Camelot, with all the magical attacks that lead to casualties of parents and guardians here.

Gwaine was thoroughly approving. And that night Gwaine sneaked into the records room, crossed out "not applicable" on his form, and filled in "Morwenna the weaver of the lower town" as the one to whom his salary should go when he died.

It wasn't that he had feelings for her; it was that he knew his life was still as precarious as a knight as it had been when he was a wanderer, and he wanted Morwenna to have stability and the ability to reach out to others when he was gone. More than anyone else he knew, she might as well benefit.

And then Gwaine died.

And proceeded to spend an interesting few years discovering what it was like to live under a lake, learning just how far he could drive the princess before he drove him completely nuts, getting to know Lancelot and Elyan better than he ever had in life, and getting a few lessons on manners in the form of meaningful looks from Freya.

Also watching events in Camelot on the underside of the lake's surface. Freya was tied to Merlin, meaning it was easiest for her to show whatever he was doing. She could follow Gwen for Arthur and Elyan's sakes, and once Amhar was born they all wanted to see him too.

But in all the years under the lake, Gwaine caught only a few glimpses of Morwenna, on the edges once or twice when Gwen went down to the lower town.

He couldn't ask Freya to look in on her, because how would he explain that to anyone? There was nothing between them that gave him the right to do that. So he kept his tongue behind his teeth and contented himself with sincerely hoping she was well and getting his salary.

And then they all went back, which was more fun than Gwaine had had in a long time. Having been dead provided a source of endless pranks and jokes he could play. Not to mention that he finally got to meet Amhar in person. The best part of being alive, though, was finally being able to support Merlin again. He'd lost sight of that a bit, somehow, in his later years as a knight, and he hadn't forgiven himself for that. After years of watching Merlin quietly grieve and try to go on with life while being unable to do anything, there was something incredibly good about being able to say what he wanted to say, to be there for Merlin in the old ways he'd used to be in the beginning of their friendship.

Somehow he survived the battle with the Saxons. He didn't know how.

But given everything going on, it was quite some time after he got back to Camelot before he finally got a chance to look in on Morwenna.

He hadn't wanted to before he went to fight the Saxons, because he felt it would be far too strange to reintroduce himself only to say goodbye and go off to die. But then he came back, and things had calmed down a little.

He was on his way to the training grounds one day, when he ran into Merlin and Freya going the other way. Freya was laughing about something, which – Gwaine couldn't ever remember hearing her laugh in the lake. It seemed only Merlin could get her to do that.

"I swear it's true!" Merlin was saying. "All I could do – oh, hello, Gwaine."

"Definition of lovebirds, you two are," Gwaine told them, grinning. "Don't mind me."

But when he was out of their way, he didn't go to the training grounds. Instead, fifteen minutes later, he found himself knocking at the door of the house in the lower town where Morwenna lived.

She opened the door – and promptly slammed it shut in his face.

"Morwenna?" Gwaine asked tentatively. He realized he'd forgotten to bring any flowers, but there was a flowering vine growing over the door, and he quickly broke a blossom off.

Morwenna cracked the door ajar. There were tears in her eyes. She was older and still just as beautiful.

"Is it really you?" she asked.

"The one and only," Gwaine answered. "At your service, my lady." He swept a bow, holding out the flower.

Morwenna let out a sob; then she snatched the flower from him, flung open the door, and slapped him.

"Ow!" Gwaine exclaimed, more startled than hurt. "Morwenna! What was that for?"

"How could you do that to me?" Morwenna demanded hotly. "You never tell me you have any intentions toward me, but when you die, I get your salary as if I was your wife! You come back, and instead of dropping in and explaining, hey, Morwenna, this was whatever I actually meant with that little stunt, you go haring off to fight the Saxons! What is a lady to think?"

"I didn't know you cared," Gwaine said. He meant it to come out teasing, but it came out startled and sincere instead.

"Of course I cared!" Morwenna shot back hotly. "I didn't know you cared!"

"Mother?" a voice asked within the house. "Who is it?"

Morwenna half-choked on a sob, then swung the door open.

"You might as well come in, you renegade knight, you," she said. "Ravenel!" she called into the house. "Sir Gwaine is here!"

Ravenel came running into the front room as Gwaine came in, dark eyes the mirror image of her mother's flown wide. Gwaine stopped short at the sight of her, because in the years he had been gone she had grown into a young lady on the cusp of womanhood, and she looked so much like her mother the day he had met her, except without the haunted eyes.

"Uncle Gwaine!" she cried, and flung her arms around his neck as she had when she was a little girl. Dropping down to stand on her toes, she glanced quickly between him and her mother.

"I'm going out with Kym, Mother," she said mischievously. "Solve this before I get back!" And she was out the door before either of them could say anything.

"Stubborn girl," Morwenna said, but there was immense fondness in her tone. Then she spun on Gwaine again, eyes flashing. "So?" she demanded. "What's your smooth-tongued explanation?"

But he noticed that sometime between the door and now she had tucked the flower he had given her into her hair.

It was the first time she had ever done that.

Gwaine swallowed hard, and prepared to give more honesty than he often did. "I didn't leave you the salary because I thought of you as my wife," he said. "I left it to you because I knew you and Kendra were going to try to help, and I wanted to support you if I died. I did think you were the loveliest woman I knew," he added in a sudden determination to be utterly honest, "but I didn't think you were ready for that, and I didn't want to push."

"You fool," Morwenna told him, but it was far more teasingly possessive than demeaning. "There's legends about you, you know? That I heard before I knew you. That you appear everywhere where you're most needed, but you never, never stay. I didn't think you'd stay, even if I asked. And you never asked me if – if I was ready."

Gwaine felt as though he'd been punched in the gut. "Morwenna, I wasn't all that," he protested. "I was no legend – I was just a stupidly reckless man trying to do a bit of good."

"I _know,"_ Morwenna told him hotly. "I knew that! But I didn't think you'd stay even for me. And then you went and died."

"I'm sorry I didn't come back after I came to life," Gwaine told her. "I – I didn't know. And I thought I was going to die fighting the Saxons. I didn't want to say hello and goodbye again."

Morwenna pulled in and blew out a deep breath.

"Well, you didn't die," she said, and her voice was calmer. "So what do you say now?"

"I say it's up to my lady what she wants to do," Gwaine told her steadily.

Morwenna stood for a moment, as if irresolute; then she leaned up and kissed him on the lips, very lightly and quickly.

"I'm ready now," she said, "if you want to court me like the knight you are."

"My lady," Gwaine told her, bowing low, "it would be my honor."

Gwaine had been married for a year, cheerful and happy in the new home he had on this side of the lake, knowing that if something somehow happened to him Morwenna would be provided for, when the circus came to Camelot.

It was a bright, gaudy thing, full of people with all sorts of things up their sleeve. So many had magic that Gwaine understood why he didn't remember this circus in Camelot at all from his past life.

But he went, as he had made a habit of going to all the circuses he had ever come across. The magic and the stunts awed him and for a time made him almost forget what he was there for.

It was when Morwenna tugged his arm and whispered in an amused voice, "That lady looks a bit like you," that he came back to himself, and looked.

She did look a bit like him. Her hair was iron-gray, and there were lines in her face, but she still had Mother's laugh, and her eyes were still bright.

"Nelda?" he whispered under his breath, and Morwenna, bless her, understood at once.

"Then go!" she whispered, and gave him a shove.

Gwaine stumbled forward with the force of it, almost into the lady's lap. She looked up and stared at him, and then her eyes went wide.

"Nelda?" he asked again.

"Gwaine," she said, and the next moment she had scrambled to her feet and had him in her arms. And Gwaine felt twelve again, young and safe in his sister's embrace.

At thirty-five, Gwaine finally learned, once and for all, that maybe the world had cold and cruel parts, but maybe there was friendship, maybe there was love, maybe there was warmth that mattered more.

**Author's Note:**

> Gwaine is at once hard and easy to write for. He's easy because he's actually fairly well developed in canon, but hard because it still feels like there's a lot we don't know about him, and depths we never quite understand. This is perhaps more canon-adjacent than canon-compliant, but the idea captured my mind and I tried to do it justice. :)


End file.
